{"id":214771,"date":"2024-07-02T08:16:40","date_gmt":"2024-07-02T12:16:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=214771"},"modified":"2024-07-02T08:16:41","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T12:16:41","slug":"cahnr-alum-kristin-rubin-brings-nutrition-to-consumers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2024\/07\/cahnr-alum-kristin-rubin-brings-nutrition-to-consumers\/","title":{"rendered":"CAHNR Alum Kristin Rubin Brings Nutrition to Consumers"},"content":{"rendered":"

With a degree in political science in hand, Kristin Rubin \u201904 (CAHNR<\/a>) thought she was done with school.<\/p>\n

But during her senior year, Rubin developed an interest in nutrition and athletic performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought this will just have to be something that I think about because I\u2019m finished with school,\u201d Rubin says. \u201cBut I realized I wanted to do more than just have it be a personal hobby.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CAHNRRubin did much more than think about it. In the end, she pursued her master\u2019s and then PhD in nutritional science at UConn.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce I got to UConn, I had access to so many different fields of study in nutrition, that my interests really expanded,\u201d Rubin says.<\/p>\n

Rubin says one of the reasons she chose to come to UConn was that it was the only program where her prospective advisor, Professor Maria-Luz Fernandez, reached out to her directly to discuss her interests.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought, \u2018this is someone who cares about me as a student\u2019,\u201d Rubin says. \u201cI knew from that conversation with her I was definitely coming to UConn.\u201d<\/p>\n

At UConn, Rubin researched the individual response to dietary cholesterol and became very interested in personalized nutrition.<\/p>\n

Rubin\u2019s first job after graduation was at a biotech company in San Francisco. After working there for about a year, Rubin realized she missed the application side of nutritional science.<\/p>\n

\u201cI needed that connection and understanding of how advances in science can help people,\u201d Rubin says.<\/p>\n

Rubin began working in the nutrition research division of Kraft Foods Group in 2005. She worked on products focused on different dietary goals such as weight loss, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes.<\/p>\n

Rubin worked at Kraft for over a decade before moving to Mars Inc. in 2016. When Mars formed a partnership with KIND, the popular snack bar company, in 2018, Rubin led the nutrition and regulatory aspect of their global expansion.<\/p>\n

As the global head of nutrition, Rubin oversees nutrition and regulatory affairs for KIND, Nature\u2019s Bakery and Tr\u00fcFr\u00fc within Mars.<\/p>\n

Rubin\u2019s role encompasses everything from contributing to the development of product ideas to labeling.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s nutrition throughout that whole process,\u201d Rubin says. \u201cIt\u2019s really bringing nutrition insights to inform innovation and recipe development to create the product you find in the grocery store.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rubin says with her background in nutritional science, she serves as a source of expertise for others in the company.\u201cBeing a nutrition expert in a company like mine, you get the opportunity to support all these other teams that really want to better understand nutrition and you play kind of an educator role,\u201d Rubin says.<\/p>\n

Rubin even plays this role at home, talking to her children about nutrition misinformation they see on social media.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s so important to understand nutrition and food fundamentals – the science, should be a source of of truth so that we can focus on the things that will help people versus being distracted by the nutrition noise that\u2019s out there,\u201d Rubin says. \u201cMisinformation is a big challenge for the field of nutrition, I think.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rubin says one of the most rewarding aspects of the job for her is seeing how nutritional science can be translated into a scalable consumer product.<\/p>\n

At KIND, for example, the company helps consumers get recommended food groups like nuts and whole grains in to their diet, by making these the first ingredient in our recipes, Rubin says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love that I\u2019m working in a business where the goal is to bring those foods to the diet, addressing the recommended food gap through the products we offer is important to me as a Nutrition Scientist,\u201d Rubin says.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is set to release new dietary guidelines in 2025, something Rubin is eagerly anticipating as a renewed opportunity to communicate with consumers.<\/p>\n

While population-based guidelines like these have been the standard for years, Rubin says she sees a future of personalized nutrition approaches. Given this, Rubin says diversity in the field as well as in research data is critical to ensure everyone\u2019s needs are studied, represented, and met.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe rate at which technology is advancing really gives us access to understand how we respond to food, and I think it will become more and more customized based on your physiology. We have to be ready for that,\u201d Rubin says.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This work relates to CAHNR\u2019s Strategic Vision area focused on\u00a0<\/em>Enhancing Health and Well-Being Locally, Nationally, and Globally.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Follow\u00a0<\/em>UConn CAHNR<\/em><\/a>\u00a0on social media<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Working at some of the biggest names in food, Kristin Rubin connects nutrition, health, and innovation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":214772,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[147,2224,2301],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2140],"class_list":["post-214771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-cahnr","category-nutritional-sciences"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-04 05:50:48","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/127"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214771"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214771\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":214773,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214771\/revisions\/214773"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/214772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214771"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=214771"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=214771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}